How to hide products for certain customers on Shopify

What I’ve been thinking about:

There are various reasons a merchant may want to make some products available only to specific customers. For example, I’ve seen several loyalty programs where only VIP members can access exclusive products.

You could set this up with an app like Locksmith (I’ll talk more about this option below) or go the custom route. There are always multiple solutions to a coding problem!

To set this up, only customers signed in and have a specific tag can access the “locked” collection or products. In this example, customers who are logged in and have the tag VIP will be shown a secret link so they can access the exclusive products.

Click to see example or see below.

3 links you can’t miss:

• JSONLint - Are you running into the dreaded “Invalid JSON in tag ‘schema’” warning but can’t find the missing comma or where your JSON is invalid? Just copy and paste your code into JSONLint and this tool will tidy and validate your messy JSON code.
• Shopify Theme Customization with Liquid - This book by Ivan Djordjevic is perfect for those who need to brush up on their Liquid or Shopify skills. It covers a host of Shopify topics and has hands-on projects so you can showcase your theme customization expertise.
• Checkout Links - With a checkout link, you can select the products, quantities, and discounts you’d like to apply and send customers directly to checkout.

One app I like:

Locksmith by Lightward

If you need more robust access control then Locksmith is the best app for the job. In addition to granting access if the customer has a certain tag, you can grant access by passcode, secret link, IP address or country, and so many other ways.

I’ve used the secret link to give newsletter subscribers early access to a product and the country lock to hide products that can’t be shipped to certain countries. It can also be used as a solution for a simple wholesale program. I love that there are so many creative ways to use this app!